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Reviewed by:
  • Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before
  • Karen Coats
Yoo, David; Stop Me If You’ve Heard This One Before. Hyperion, 2008; [320p] ISBN 978-1-4231-0907-5 $16.99 Reviewed from galleys R Gr. 7–10

After two years of high-school hibernation as an “intentional loser” with a group of sixth graders as his only friends, Albert Kim finds himself working a summer job with Mia, the most popular girl in his school. She’s working to take her mind off her breakup with long-term boyfriend, Ryan, who’s just as popular as she. After a disastrous beginning that highlights Albert’s desperate social awkwardness, Mia and Albert’s relationship evolves from bare tolerance into an official “something,” and Albert enters his junior year with high hopes. Mia’s friends haven’t really gotten over her breakup with Ryan, and Albert’s weirdness doesn’t help, but the real challenge to their nascent relationship comes when Ryan gets cancer, and everyone, including Mia herself, expects her to stand by her first man as he undergoes treatment. Albert’s caustic wit punctuates the canny observations only a confirmed outsider could make of the entire situation; his transformation from geeky loner to popular girl’s boyfriend is credibly bumpy and incomplete, replete with cringeworthy gaffes as he tries to compete for Mia’s attention with a hot, self-confident guy who has the added attraction and celebrity of being a well-liked athlete dying young. Mia herself is especially well drawn, caught up in the tragedy of a boy she’s over and yet still feels responsible for, exhausted by the demands and expectations of both families who were counting on a long-term thing between their beautifully well-matched children, and still wanting something for herself at the end of the day. Though the plot is a bit rangy, it’s satisfying and unpredictable, and the characters and narrative voice keep the involvement level high throughout. [End Page 101]

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